Farewell, Atlassian. It was enchanting to meet you.

After more than 6 years, it’s time to step away from Statuspage and turn my attention inward for the next year. My 10 years after graduating college were so incredibly focused and devoted to developing the doing part of me — constantly learning and honing the craft of being a productive, generalist founder. It’s made me successful in this game of capitalism, but the truth is that my path to happiness — to contentment — is almost entirely orthogonal to my professional achievement. The doing part of me is a strong force, often out of my control, and I need to go make peace with it. The being part of me is there, I just need to get to know it better, and need to move away from being default-doing.

Having only 7 days left in my Statuspage life is quite literally unbelievable right now, so this post is as much an exploration of my emotional state as it is a settled reflection of my time spent here.

Trust and feedback loops

I think a lot about the principles by which I live my life, focusing on inputs and trying to trust the process. It’s hard, you know, when you don’t get feedback right away. Am I wasting time? To date Statuspage is my longest-running version of this experiment, and it seems to have worked. Make something people want, stay humble, focus on your customers, don’t get caught up building an empire, repeat. Much of it was deliberate, but a lot was luck, and like any happy outcome we had many near-misses along the way.

When Statuspage was getting started, I remember telling my brother “if this thing eventually ends up making $10k a month our lives are going to be changed forever”. The thought of our little project now making way more than that is insane, but it really highlights how much we just wanted it to exist, to be a real thing on the internet, financial results be damned. Building an actual company seemed secondary to everything we wanted: spending lots of time with people like Danny, nights up late with the rain pitter patter as we pushed through the second 80% of getting features shipped, and each turn of the business causing us to be more and more unqualified for our jobs. We had no idea what we were getting into, but I’m happy that was the case. We just said “yes” and kept going.

I’ve struggled recently with trusting longer feedback loops. Being a software developer, that loop is so tight it’s intoxicating. Idea to production code is measured in minutes or hours, not weeks or months like my time as Product Manager. Left unexamined or unchallenged I fear I would remain a resident of this short loop addicted town. Living here for me is safe, it’s rewarding in the cheap way, it’s easy.

But alas, I know I’m destined for patience and reverence of longer feedback loops if I want to be successful in the next phase of my working life. The default-doing self abhors longer loops, but a balanced doing-being self has the right mix, and that’s what I want; it’s at least what I owe to this world, this life that has given me so much.

Leaving a tribe

Atlassian is an incredible place, let’s get that straight. I’ll reiterate that leaving for me is not out of boredom or frustration, but rather of deference to what I know I need next. Should I reboot into another company at some point in the future, I will be working tirelessly to shape it to be substantially like what Atlassian is today, specifically the people that are here.

It cannot be overstated the emergent privilege of getting to come work each and every day with a group that is so open to sharing, writes passionately about their work-life and their life-life, seeks first to understand, effectively weeds out assholes, and commits to the rising of the tide for everyone. The feeling of belonging is no joke; we spend a lot of time working on it, and lord I hope we never lose that.

And a few of you by name

Allyse: You truly embody what it means to put forth an Atlassian effort; obviously in the work that you do for the company, but most notably in the way you think of and take care of the team. Statuspage wouldn’t be nearly what it is today without you, and I’m so lucky to have been able to see you work up close. Don’t ever lose your curiosity and your servant leadership, the world needs it now more than ever.

Danny Olinsky: I’ll never be able to say thank you enough. You took such a leap to be with us; putting up with so many years of Steve and I regressing to our sibling childhood, recognizing early on what the company needed and committing to leading the sales and customer success effort, all without ever an unkind word for everyone we encountered along the way. You make me want to be a more kind, patient person.

Steve Klein: I hope you aren’t permanently damaged from another 6 years of me being big brother to you again. I think most of my feelings were summed up previously, but I’ll just reiterate that there’s something special about building something so closely with a sibling. I would hope for everyone to have the same experience we had, even though I know it’s not something that can be recreated. We’ve drawn many correct lottery numbers together, and this surely was one of them.

Blake, Jake, Tyler, Tony, Dan, Charlotte, Dylan, Sam, Duane, Andrei, Matt: Thank you for rolling with startup life and saying “yes” to new adventures. You all had a lot of change foisted upon you, and I hope your time here has allowed you a similar gratitude of the past few years together. We owe our early success to the can-do spirit and sheer force of will you all embodied. Front inbox rotations, pushing a huge SUV through snow, blurry mornings at AWS re:Invent, having to say goodbye to Denver earlier than any of us wanted to. I’m lucky to have been given more time with you in SF, thank you for sticking around.

Edwin, Otto, Pratima, Mary, Paul, Robert, Faye, Didier: Statuspage helped stay relevant through conversations with all of you, helping us navigate as we floated alongside a much larger ship, and making sure we weren’t missing the forest for the trees. You’ve made me a better thinker and a better communicator, and one day I hope to be an even better leader using what you all have taught me. #CAPS4ever

Andrew : You and I have gone through more than one occasion where you could have walked away or said “no” and nobody would have been upset, but you didn’t, and I’m so happy you’ve been with us for this transition into being part of Atlassian. Your penchant for delayed gratification is a force to be reckoned with, and I know you and your family will see the rewards of that as your career continues to progress.

Tanguy and Caspar : The early days of Statuspage here at Atlassian were nothing like they are now, and the two of you signed up knowing that was the case, even when it required moving to San Francisco! The early days inside of Atlassian put a big spotlight on places where we needed to grow, and grow up we did, but only with great guidance, context, and tireless effort of you helping us push forward

Shannon : You’re one of my favorite success stories, and an absolute testament to focusing on working hard and having a good attitude. thank you for all of the emotion and execution you brought to making sure the human side of the Incident Management story was told, HugOps and Playbook will live on far after both of us are gone, and then we’ll get the honor of using them at wherever we end up next. Best of luck to you as you start your new journey forgetting which join you’ll need to use (spoiler: I still have to look it up every time).

Lee, Rio, Daniel : I had great fun serving alongside you as a technical leader. Statuspage is in good hands with you and the newer technical leads as we push through some of the more hairy migration over to Identity, ADG3, and SPA

Ernest Durbin and Nick Coates: you may never read this, but superfans like you give so much life to little startups like ours. You mean more to us than our little t-shirt and sticker gifts could ever convey. Thank you for continuing to evangelize.

Robocraps machine: I love you. Never change. #hornbet

Up next for me

Morgan, Quinn, and I just moved to Seattle, trading in the noise and convenience of good food and coffee for a big backyard and a real summer. The past 6 years have seen us in 4 cities, moving 5 times, long distance relationship, getting acquired, engaged-married-pregnant all in 6 months, and finally trying to figure out first time parenthood as a newly married couple. It’s time for some quiet and some rest.

I’m probably never going to stop building software, and I’ll probably never stop loving technology, so it’s likely that here I will remain. Whether 6 months or 6 years from now I’ll probably be a founder again. Right now I can’t place exactly what it will look like, and I need to develop the balanced doing-being self before I can trust the answer that it gives.

On a related note, the past few years have forced my wife and I to confront some new and tough realities of recessive autosomal disorders, cancer-causing genetic mutations, and a whole host of other medical speedbumps for us and our family. In a way, the writing appears to already be on the wall for my next act — software married with something else like genetics, health, or energy.

What do you all think I should work on next?

Thank you, please keep in touch

Thank you all so much for these past couple of years, you have all transformed my life for the better, and in such a tremendous way that trying to repay it would be a fool’s errand. We all stand on the immense shoulders of those before us, and within our little tribe even help each other be in the spotlight for brief moments in time.

If you’re in the Seattle area in the future let’s get coffee, or help us out with introductions to good people that we should be spending time with. I got off social media at the beginning of the year, and it’s very likely I won’t be going back to it, so LinkedIn and email are probably the best places to stay in touch.

Be kind to yourselves, be kind to others, and good luck on each and every one of your journeys.